Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius."
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
Very disappointing. The novel's blurb sounds interesting.
I enjoyed very much Mike Carey's Felix Castor series. The Steel
Seraglio was alright. So I expected a decent read here. It wasn't
obviously. The writing is mediocre. However this can be ignored if
the story and characters are worth it. They're not, they're card board
cut outs. Very little depth, filling generic roles we've seen lots of times before. Sympathetic woman. Confused child. Mean/detached doctor/nurse. Rugged, mean Sargent. Etc. As you read the book the author takes two of the currently, probably, most popular themes for the past 5 years and used them. The obvious first one is post-apocalyptic. The second is explained about 1/5th into the book so I won't ruin it if you decided to read this book. The story is not original. The story is not a good interpretation of an often used idea. Pass on this one.